The Pain of a Lost Memory

The author of and most of the commentators to this article fail to adequately address what the author himself admits as an alleged lack of valid reasons as to why people don't back up their data. To me, it's simple: the lack of reliable, standardized technology. How many times have we seen backups fail with the usual cryptic messages and error codes? There is no mom and pop level software that I'm aware of that will reliably synchronize partitions and/or O/S directories. However, even if there were, there are still two words that would solve it all: HOT BACKUPS. Until and unless we can backup on the fly, we're going to keep losing data.

The hard drive on my mac recently died. Fortunately, I have been using ElephantDrive.com. My important files are backed up nightly, automatically, on their secure servers. The interface is intuitive and it works. ElephantDrive allowed me to download all of my important files via my DSL line and I am back in business, data intact.. Data backup is now easy, painless and guilt free..

Backing up is great and should be a necessity for all individuals and companies, however many people, even on these posts are living with a false sense of security by simply backing up to an external hard drive, DVDs or CDs. By doing this you are still leaving yourself susceptible to the threat of a disaster at your home or office I.e. a fire or a flood.

To avoid this I recommend using a remote database backup solution called RedBoomerang. It works just like any other backup solution but instead of storing it locally it sends it to a remote company. Which also makes it ideal for travelers. That way you don't need to bother bringing an external HD when you're away on business. Wherever you have internet access your computer backs itself up.

oops that's Carbonite.com, not Carbolite.

At the present time I wave all our data backed up on 8 hard drives and several DVDs, my file server has a mirrored raid set up. All my drives backed up using Beyond Compare one a week and once a month I clone both C: drives with X-Clone. We have almost 17000 digital images at this time which losing is not an option (been there done that not a pretty picture).
The people I work with say I am paranoid. I keep advising them to back up. But when they lose there data I get to say I told you. Not funny but true. This is my home systems.

At the present time I have all my files backed up on 8 hard drives these are updated with Beyond Compare once a week and then once a month my C: drive on both machines are cloned with X-Clone. My file server is a raid 1(Mirrored). I have 17K digital image (at this time) and adding more daily. Loosing them is not an option. Most of the people I work with tells me I am parnoid. I keep advising them to back-up. When they crash I get to say I told you so. Not funny but true.

As the owner of a computer sales and support company I often have the displeasure of informing clients that all of the pictures of their child, their tax forms, years of genealogy and other precious memories are lost forever. I have seen businesses lost all of their contacts and accounts receivable files. The list of excuses for not backing up their data can all be boiled down to: I just will not be bothered with backing up! I have had clients break down and cry, curse an even become violent when they realized what they have lost. I have seen it bankrupt businesses. All because 10 minutes a day and as little as 25cents a day are to much trouble.

I bought OSX lepard which has a seamless backup system. I then bought a 500GB hard drive and plugged it in. Now my iMac computer makes continuous backups of everything.

We have a back up system that backs the files up very often. However, at some point, some child or another erased pictures that we have of our kids for the last ten years. They didn't want to mention it for fear of getting in trouble. We didn't discover it until about a month later. Those files keep backing up over and over again on the same medium and recording over what was there. The picture files are irretrievably lost.

I think I must have had a lemon of a computer. It is a 2001. My hard drive died in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005- but not for the last two years- i must have been tortured enough! I think I lost at least one hard drive on my former computer. I have always backed up either through floppies, zip drives, CD's and DVD's. Basically, I used whatever is popular. Still, I lost some extremely important documents every time. Somehow one document or folder would always slip throught the cracks. Now, I keep even more things in digital form. I got rid of the three 4-drawer file cabinets or research. i got rid of 150 music CD's and have never printed many recent family and work related photos. But, I also back up to CD's and DVD's and save them in multiple locations (even different towns). Also, I am now on Windows Vista- on a new computer. It backs up any files I change, every morning. As an extremely computer dependent academic and professional, I don't ever want to lose those important things ever again. I will do whatever it takes!

I think I must have had a lemon of a computer. It is a 2001. My hard drive died in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005- but not for the last two years- i must have been tortured enough! I think I lost at least one hard drive on my former computer. I have always backed up either through floppies, zip drives, CD's and DVD's. Basically, I used whatever is popular. Still, I lost some extremely important documents every time. Somehow one document or folder would always slip throught the cracks. Now, I keep even more things in digital form. I got rid of the three 4-drawer file cabinets or research. i got rid of 150 music CD's and have never printed many recent family and work related photos. But, I also back up to CD's and DVD's and save them in multiple locations (even different towns). Also, I am now on Windows Vista- on a new computer. It backs up any files I change, every morning. As an extremely computer dependent academic and professional, I don't ever want to lose those important things ever again. I will do whatever it takes!

External hard drive...plug them in to PC, drag files, that's it. It does not get any easier (and they get cheaper by the week)

External hard drives...plug them in, drag files and that's it. It doesn't get any easier. They are also inexpensive.

Oh the guilt! We were also totally negligent about backing up our data...untill our comuter crashed this summer. We lost all of our music files, personal documents, and emails from long -lost friends. Worst of all, we lost years worth of pictures. School plays, little league ball games, first days of school, vacations, pictures of our beloved White Sox clinching the World Series...all gone. Are we 100% diligent about backing up our data now? No. But we are better. It was a painful lesson to learn!

heatherv93,

Try OnTrack Data Recovery. There is likely not any local company in your area as this is generally done by major companies because of what's involved. They sale software for data recovery if your HDD is accessible at all. But that is likely what your local PC shop tried to do to get the data back. What you will probably have to do is send your HDD out for them to attempt to pull the data off the tape itself if it is still intact. They should be able to recover your data if the tape itself has not been damaged. Keep in mind however, it's expensive!

maruichan - thanks so much for the advice!! I'm in Nashville, TN - do you know of any good ones in my area?

heatherv93,

It is possible to recover your data if part of your HDD is still functioning. If the data is that important to you, you can send it out to a company where it may be possible to recover the data using equipment that can read the tape in hard drive's that have failed. Of course, that all depends on the extent of the damage PHYSICALLY inside the drive. If the hard drive mechanism just simply can't read the information and the tape is still intact, they can use the equipment to recover your data.

I keep three BACKUPS. Actually, this is an ongoing topic for me within the past week because I have spent a great amount of my time helping people recover their own data. My fiance's HDD decided to fail and I actually lost two of my own BACKUPS in the process. One was intentional was I needed a place to store his data I was recovering, but the second back up was lost due to the installation disk by Gateway removing my data without my permission...

Either way, it's good to have a geek to go to for these types of things. PC "Professionals" don't give you the whole story and it's a lot like a car getting repaired. There may be a way to fix your car, but without knowing how a car works, you couldn't possible know if the professional is giving you the entire story. Technicians often don't tell their customers that they have this--though expensive--alternative to recover their data.

Keep more than one backup. My third backup was on a laptop, so the information was untouched, but it was out of date by a month or so. My fiance almost lost 60-80G worth of data--most that would've been unrecoverable. Most of the data I would've lost would've been music and artwork/renders that I have done and accumulated since 10 years ago! It is not backed up on a DVD and is going straight to a safe deposit box where it is not at risk for being scratched. I recommend solid state backup for pictures and things like that that can be stored in a place where it won't get scratched. Blue ray burners--when they get much cheaper--can burn 25G a disk. Of course, all of this is useless if the consumer doesn't try to back up their own data.

Whoops, doubled up! Sorry!

I picked up a copy of Apple's new Mac OS X Leopard (www.apple.com) product which gives you "Time Machine" over the weekend. I have to say it's a great product. Time Machine makes it simple, nay, even fun to backup my data. All I do is flip a switch and my data is backed up for me automatically, no ifs ands or buts. A simple click and I can retrieve a document I may have accidentally deleted without thinking first.

Time Machine does require an external hard drive, but that's simpler to achieve than configuring complex backup software.

And as an earlier commenter noted, off-site backups are equally important in case of theft or natural disaster. I use MediaMax (www.mediamax.com) to handle my off-site backups. It's been fast and reliable for me for the past several years.